In the past, management as a discipline has been considered a social science rather than a universal science. As a social science three problems of management exist. First, there is a lack of acceptable definitions of terms. Secondly, there is an ignorance of the breadth of the history of management. Thirdly, there exists unworkable management theory. As management developed as a social science, these problems falsely confirmed the belief that successful management is subject to human uniqueness. While in fact, management based on anthropocentrism added problems because, for example, (1) many managers lacked understanding of the management process, (2) vested interests pervade the decision process, as a result of the prepotent need for self and group protection when the measures of efficiency and effectiveness are concerned, and (3) the imposition of group norms to control production are not subject to positive control.
Recognition that management, as a discipline, has not in theory or in practice sought to connect its principles to those of other sciences has led to the clashing of the social sciences and particularly the life sciences on the neutral ground of human behavior. The field of contention is over the relationship of nature and nurture or, in traditional terms, heredity and culture.
The seeds for a scientific method in management were planted in the nineteenth century, they blossomed into literature during the emergent period 1900-1925 with Frederick W. Taylor's 1903 publication entitled "Shop Management". The convergent period 1925-1950 concentrated initially upon the use of the scientific method to study groups of people in the work place. The focus for this period was the private sector, but the focus of the researchers was academe. The use of the academic laboratory in addition to the work place as a clinical practice area for the human biologic sciences resulted in the eventual establishment of the case method at the Harvard Business School in contrast to the more traditional social, historical approach of economics.
World War II changed the focus of the application of science to management. Military organizations are historically and paradigmatically the first large-scale instance of management. This war created organizations, with their commensurate problems of world-wide proportions. The electronic data processing computer, with its future management potential, came out of the war effort.
The proliferent period 1950-1975 found vigorous competition among corporations to fill or enlarge their niches resulting in a positive approach in computer development. The computer could give a clerical informational advantage to organizations dealing with either world-wide or local problems.
The first electronic digital computer was designed and fabricated by Atanasoff and Berry at Iowa State College in 1937-1938. In 1946, Mauchly and Eckert completed the first large-scale computer, called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC). All such devices lacked the unique capability of the stored program concept - the ability to internalize its own administration. This is the real dividing point between the mechanical/electrical devices and the electronic computer. John Von Neumann's 1945 discovery is the fall line between the automatic data processor (ADP) and the electronic data processor (EDP). Now a machine could be programmed to administer its own operations.
Computer programs are divided into two classes. The general problem-solving type is called a systems program while the specific problem-solving collection of instructions is classified as an application program. The most fundamental systems program, which serves as an interface between machine and user, is called a language. Its prepotency can be related to the hardware evolution.
______________________________________ LANGUAGES HARDWARE ______________________________________ Machine Vacuum tube Assembler/ Transistor Compiler Interpreter Integrated circuit (IC) User-friendly Very large scale IC (VLSI) ______________________________________
As computer systems evolved, so did their management involvement. The electronic data processing computer with its future management potential came out of the World War II; efforts to handle on a large scale people, materials, and data necessitated attempts to codify the functions of management. These attempts were not altogether successful, but functions common to these attempts were planning, organizing, and controlling.
These efforts produced three effects on the computer of broad management significance. The first involved control and emphasized systems. In the 1950's, DuPont developed the Critical Path Method (CPM), and the Navy came up with Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT). Both use network analyses. CPM identified the longest (time) series of work elements which could then receive management attention; PERT statistically set time goals and tracked their accomplishment. By the 1960's these types of control systems were widely used as computerized systems to evaluate time and sometimes money.
The second effect involved Operations Research (OR). Obviously, the computer was an ideal tool for dealing with OR problems. It could handle the quantities of data and equations required by many large-scale efforts. As a result, OR ceased to utilize an interdisciplinary team approach and, instead, used a cookbook approach of applied computer programs.
The third effect precipitated the beginning of artificial intelligence. This field of computer science was pioneered in part by a behavioral management theorist, Herbert Simon. The goal, a general problems solver (GPS), was at that time far from completion. It did set the stage for the present interest in expert systems and other forthcoming computer advances having management significance.
The problem with these management systems as indicated above is that the systems were not general management problem solvers. A computerized general management problem solver must have a generic basis.
If one accepts the proposition that management as theory has already been repeatedly tested by nature, the science of management is an actuality. Not only is management a science--but science is management. Thus, going beyond the life sciences, the theory of evolution provides a management theory as follows:
The two principles of evolution are constancy and change. The proton of the atom can function alone as an emergent in a nucleus of hydrogen, whereas the single-strand ribonucleic acid (RNA) of the cell functions only as a coemergent. Nevertheless, they are concerned initially with the same operational principle-constancy. They both share change through gradual and eventually drastic mutation. Thus, if constancy and change are the principles of an operational universe, then emergence, convergence, proliference, and divergence are their characteristic actions or functions. Emergence and convergence are the functions of constancy, and proliference and divergence are the functions of change.
The general systems or parallel units of these functional relationships are alike in that one word, attraction, describes the overall process of each; but they are different as to the outcomes. The operation general systems are: attraction (emergence), combination (convergence), recombination (proliference), and concentration (divergence).
The first observation of attraction should be the origin of management. Recently, such primordial attraction has been shown to take place at the subelementary particle level. This attraction capability of subelementary entities is the point at which certain "determination of the course of action" of matter occurred. A concentration of such quarks is associated with dissipative energy very soon after the Big Bang and resulted in particles as new states of matter. This determined course of action (along with the necessary energy to accomplish it) was informed in these new emergent particles. The particle, therefore, was self-informed as to its course of action concerning operational/support functions. Such a course of action or "scheme of doing" was common to all particles at birth; and at the instances of their emergence, attraction was initiated and in proper systematic order the combinations of convergence took place. In other words, the course of action was accomplished.
The predetermined course of action as accomplished consisted of the subfunctions of tasks of the work elements of convergence, plication/replication and combination (nucleosynthesis). The goal of the course of action is the product, in this case the configured means of constancy and change.
The tasks of convergence were accomplished as timely conditions dictated. The condition of the regular cooling from the temperature of the Big Bang to the present constitutes a universal clock. By using such cooling as the measure of time, the tasks of convergence can be ascertained as to initiation and cost in time. Further, the energy that is internal at the time of emergence can be measured as a participative cost during the tasks of convergence. Finally, the product of accomplishment can be measured as to quantity consisting of a given number of pairs of different entities in a one-to-one ratio. The quality of this product is definable as a given nucleus. From determination of the course action to the goal of a converged product, the pairings, or grouping occurred with certainty.
This certainty is weakened as the function of proliference puts the binary products or group forms at risk during recombination. Such invention includes not only reconfiguration of the binary product or group but also additional energization of a newly organized whole. Such energy is not the nucleus but rather external thereto. The resulting new organizations are tested until the fitter fills its niche and risk resolves back to certainty. Thus, invention and testing take place as the proliferent subfunctions or tasks consisting of renucleosynthesis/renurturation, energization, and eventual maturation of the fitter.
The timely initiation of these tasks is related to the overall universal cooling. The cost of time for the occurrence and recurrence of these tasks can also be calculated. Both the participative energy of the recombinant nucleus or recombinant group and the external energy can be calculated based on the kind and amount of force involved. In the case of the atom, the quantity and quality of the organized product are related. For example, as the number of nucleons increases, the kinds of elements, or quality, also change. The periodic table demonstrates this relationship of quantity and quality in a series of performed products. Thus, the performance factor may be described in this way: Quantity becomes quality in the atomic world; one electron more may lead to a complete change of properties. Therefore, the timely initiation of each task, the task cost in time, the participative energy cost per task, and the performance properties can be calculated in proliference (as in convergence) for the atom. The constant direction of time allows all the other proliference stages to complete the same risky tasks of reconfiguration and energization to certain maturity for those organizations that become fitter. Given the same time (temperature) and the same energy involvement, both molecules and compounds composed of the same amount of the same elements will result in the same quantity and quality of product. Otherwise, chemistry would not be a science.
Risky invention resolves to certainty as testing results in the maturity of selected organizations. Further selection of the fittest of these organizations causes divergence resulting in tasks of decoupling, increased motility, and symbiosis to occur with certainty. The dissipative structure thesis accounts for all such concentrations which take place far from the equilibria of both convergence and proliference.
These concentrations in a localized area cause a redetermination of a course of action in a new layer and state of matter. Thus, the functional cycle of emergence, convergence, proliference, and divergence has resulted in the ever changing topology of mass.
From the above, the evolution of management through the first macroparadigm can be detailed as follows:
1. Beginning with the origin of management at the subelementary particle level, certain determination of a course of action takes place.
2. This course of action is accomplished and assured with certainty in part and, in whole, as to time, energy, and performance.
3. Inventions at risk are resolved to mature certainty by testing; the fitter are selected based on time, energy, and performance.
4. Certain coming together of the selected fittest results in a redetermination of a course of action for the next layer of management.
A cycle of course of action determination, accomplishment and assurance of accomplishment, invention and testing, maturation, and redetermination of a course of action is the pattern of management evolution for the primary universal paradigm (physics and physical chemistry).
The secondary universal paradigm (organic, chemistry, biology, and social sciences) in its microparadigms follows mostly the same cycle as the first, the exceptions involve:
1. the introduction of new information resulting in proliferent "uncertainty" as an antecedent to the risk of invention; and
2. the advent of specific organismic management beginning with group leadership and continuing through parental governance to the eventual appearance of human organizational management.
From the above it is apparent that management handles the initial and proper, subsequent relative order of the operational/support functions of the universe involving two principles. The first principle concerns the handling of constancy and is labeled administration, a word that usually means ministration to or stewardship. Its meaning, in conjunction with management, also denotes coordination.
The second principle that handles change is anticipation, which means the taking up of something before hand. While administration involves doing, anticipation involves what is to be done.
Based on these principles, the functions of administration involve the accomplishment of a previously determined course of action (implementation) and its assurance of accomplishment in whole or in part measured in time, energy, and performance (evaluation). The functions of anticipation involve the eventual certain determination of a course of action through the resolution of risk and uncertainty (basic, applied, development research and planning). It is the plan that is the contact point between administration and anticipational in today's human organizations.
Plans are characterized by time and amount of detail. Short-term plans are called tactical; long-range, general plans are called strategic. The elements of a plan are: scope, work elements, time frame, resource allocation, summary (may be presented first), appendix, bibliography, and glossary.
The scope of the plan is a general statement about the state of the art, the nature of the problem (task), and the proposed solution expressed in goals and their surrogates. The word surrogate refers to the numbers that are required to identify the desired output in part and in whole. These are, of course, time, energy, and performance (quality specifications and quantity of outputs to be produced). Scope refers to the range of such goals or objectives.
The work elements is the initial deduction (output to input) of the manager presented inductively (input to output). These work elements are broken down into sequential stages and tasks. Such a series was typical of the industrial fabrication of physical products. A stage is a series of tasks performed one after another without a break in time. A task is a defined job that is performed by one or more human beings and/or machines without a break in time.
Time frame if the time for a task is not precisely known, then an estimate must be made. The activity time formulation is one approach that came out of PERT, i.e., AT=(a+4b+c)/6, which estimate activity time by adding the most optimistic time (a) to four times the most likely time (b) to the most pessimestic time (c) and dividing the summation by 6.
Resource Allocation is a matrix showing the cost measured in money for mass/energy (human and material resources) by both stages and tasks and is called a performance budget. The total cost for all types of resources over the time of the plan is termed a line item budget. The word, overhead, refers to those overall costs of the organization that all work elements must share (taxes, general/administrative, profit or contingency expressed as percentages of time and materials).
The summary is a general statement of how the plan will succeed. Such a summary usually has public relations value as well.
The appendix includes the resumes of the persons involved and specifications of materials. The bibliography is the identification of the source of literary, field, and experimental data. And the glossary contains an inventory and definition of special terms.
As previously stated, administration is based on control. All the information necessary to develop such a system is found in the format of the plan. Like its universal predecessor, a control system must be cybernetic, heuristic, and assured. The control of a single leader is based on authority and is subject to the errors of such a person. Similarly, most industrial control systems depend on people and are equally limited. As human beings thwart positive control by inaccurately inputting the system or to other overt actions, the closed-loop aspect of control must be absolute if positive results are to be achieved.
Prior attempts to provide good cybernetic systems in project management met with varying degrees of success. One-time-only work elements were controlled more easily because group norms did not have time to be established. Other attempts were made to computerize management, one such attempt was performance budgeting established by Government Executive Order and known as the Planning, Programming Budgeting System. This effort sought to bring the system analysis process to strategic planning; however, the higher level control systems were rarely connected with the lower-level systems; the result was a failure owing to lack of cybernetics. In addition to control failure, because the higher-level systems were rarely connected to the lower-level systems, there was no positive feedback for problem solving. Without, feedback for problem solving there can be no heuristics and no possible evolution of the plan. Those persons skilled in the art desiring more information concerning the background of this invention are referred to B. G. Schumacher, "On The Origin And Nature Of Management", Eugnosis Press (1984, 1986).